MAORI LAND SCHEMES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19700, 4 August 1938, Page 18

MAORI LAND SCHEMES

16,000 PEOPLE SUPPORTED STOCK AIDS DEVELOPMENT NATIVE LABOUR USED (Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. Great progress has been made in utilising the services of unemployed natives on the development of their own lands. The Native Affairs Board's annual report shows that grants from the Employment Promotion Fund, amounting to £3,335,000 for the year, have enabled the board to undertake the development of land which, otherwise, could not be economically cultivated. Subsidies ranging from 'SO to 100 per cent, have been given, according to the nature of the country being improved.

The assistance provided by the State has enabled the department profitably to employ 4500 'natives, and has been the means of accelerating the progress of land development undertakings. The year was marked by the commencement of 32 new land settlement projects and the extension of 25 existing schemes. These embrace a total area of 810.100 acres, of which 214.800 acres are in course of being developed and improved or are being fanned as settled holidings. The number of individual settlers, together with some 3000 farm workers, maintain over 10,000 dependants or, expressed in other terms, the funds at the disposal of the board now provide far one-quarter of the Maori population of the Dominion. Young natives are being trained as carpentering assistants in connection with the housing scheme for the Maoris, the number of houses built, including those for settlers under the development schemes, being 671.